August Arizona Adventures

    Technically the road trip was over because the Rav was left in Santa Fe and the rest of my travel was by air or in a borrowed van with my brother. I flew from Albuquerque to Phoenix to stay with my brother for the next two days and experience his world for a while. He warned me that this was the hottest time of the year for Arizona and that temperatures are usually over 110 degrees. I got lucky though and the temp was hovering around 102 the whole time I was there. This was the first time I understood what "dry heat" actually meant because although it was 102 I was not instantly sweating when I went outside because of the humidity that the Midwest experiences. 102 in dry heat felt like no big deal at all...well, for the two days I experienced it that is.
    My brother Jake picked me up from the airport (Phoenix airport= super awesome because it is in the middle of the city and one could watch planes take off and land all day long) and we drove to him Oma's house to visit before grabbing dinner out. I have never been to Arizona before and the landscape was stunning in an absolutely new sort of way. My elementary education had told me what to expect in this part of our country but actually seeing cacti as tall as telephone poles was quite flabbergasting to me.

    On Sunday we got up early and went to church then grabbed coffee and headed north through Sedona and into Flagstaff. The drive was breathtaking and the red rock was even better than what Crayola had prepared me for. In Phoenix the elevation is about 1100 feet above sea level and in Sedona we were at 4500 feet and still climbing to reach Flagstaff at 7,000 feet (and only a 2.5 hour drive)! The change in altitude drastically changed the landscape we were seeing out out windows. We went through plains of tall cacti surrounded by land brush and into valleys and hills of tall coniferous forests.

    In Sedona, we stopped to see a pretty spectacular little chapel built right into the landscape of the rock, Chapel of the Holy Cross.  Then we jogged a bit over in Sedona to Tlaquepaque which had galleries filled with jewelry, clothes, photography, etc that all highlighted that part of the country. After leaving Sedona we continued to our Flagstaff destination where we met one of Jake's friends for lunch and then walked around looking at the architecture, people, and culture of the well known town.

Tlaquepaque

Phoenix

    All day as we were enjoying hanging out and seeing the sights around us, Jake kept checking his watch to ensure that we would be back in time for his evening surprise for me. Well even with a traffic backup for miles on our return to Phoenix we were able to be a full hour early for a concert that he had gotten us tickets for! Such a cool surprise! The bands were great and the venue was too, very cozy and fun.

   Monday morning I insisted we get donuts (why...well...why not?!) on our way to see Oma again. We hung out with her for a while and enjoyed chatting on her (indoor) back porch before going back into the city to hang out in some pretty cool coffee shops. We grabbed lunch and then waited for Jake's writing group to meet that evening. Writing, more specifically editing, is Jake's job (more than a job really, his love) and he is excellent at it! This group is mostly amateur writers that each have their own style and type of writing; they come together for feedback about content, flow, character development, etc. It was great to see Jake in action as leader of the group and feeling totally in his element. Monday evening was basically the end of my trip as I had a 5am flight to Dayton on Tuesday. The road trip/vacation of 2014 was officially over; 10 days of experiencing new parts of the country, eating delicious things, drinking LOTS of coffee, and (almost) completely unplugging from my "real life".